Archbishop William Lori and the national president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People joined Gov. Martin O'Malley on Thursday to urge lawmakers to abolish capital punishment.

Clergy from across the state support the governor's bill to replace the death penalty with a sentence of life in prison without parole. Lori joined a large, emotionally charged crowd that filled the hearing room.

"I think everyone wants to build a society that's just and humane, and I think the experience has been that the death penalty does not contribute to that," Lori said.

O'Malley gave members of the Senate Judiciary Committee several reasons to repeal the death penalty. He set up his remarks with poignant background perspective of being the mayor of a large city with a serious crime problem.

"Does the death penalty work as a deterrent, as a prevention to violent crime? No. 2, is the death penalty an effective use of taxpayer dollars? And, No. 3, is the death penalty consistent with our values as people?" O'Malley said. "The death penalty does not work, it is not a deterrent and it's a waste of money."

The governor answered his own questions with an emphatic no. Committee members peppered the governor with questions, including, "If the death penalty doesn't exist, how could the state deter the killing of a corrections officer? Or, inmates murdering each other? How can justice be served if the punishment for the most heinous criminal acts is a life sentence?"

Historically, the bill has died in committee, but supporters are confident that will not happen this time.

"Everybody feels like there's a lot of support and solidarity," said Brian Evans of Amnesty International.

It is widely believed that Baltimore County Sen. Bobby Zirkin, D-District 11, is the swing vote that could launch the measure out of committee to the floor. He would then vote against it.

"I'm very conflicted on this issue, I always have been and I probably always will be," Zirkin said.

Those who oppose repealing the death penalty include police, crime victims' families and prosecutors.

"We need to keep the death penalty for the worst of the worst," Baltimore County State's Attorney Scott Shellenberger said.

Committee members who support the death penalty argued prosecutors use it as leverage or a bargaining tool.

WBAL-TV 11 News contacted every prosecutors' office in the state last year, asking them if the death penalty had been used as leverage or a bargaining tool. Eleven of the 24 jurisdictions responded. Wicomico County prosecutors did use it to secure a guilty plea, but the rest of the respondents said they did not.

Shellenberger called such maneuvering "not appropriate."

"We do not use the potential sentence as a bargaining chip," Anne Arundel County State's Attorney Frank Weathersbee said.

"At no time is it used as leverage or to advance a case," Washington County State's Attorney Charles Strong said.

Capital punishment supporters are considering a ballot question if the repeal measure passes. But in another wild card move, a provision in the bill that sets aside $500,000 for victims' families could mean the bill could not be petitioned to referendum because of the financial appropriation component.

Baltimore County Sen. Jim Brochin, D-District 42, who supports the death penalty, asked the attorney general to send him an opinion about whether the measure could go to referendum.

"It seems that even though there's an appropriation on there, it could still go to referendum," Brochin said.

Senate President Mike Miller, who also supports capital punishment, explained the appropriations element of the bill can be easily eliminated by carving out the funding.

"It's a subterfuge to try to avoid petitioning it to referendum," Miller said.

In 2009, full repeal stalled in the Senate. Instead, lawmakers decided to restrict the death penalty to murder cases with DNA evidence, videotaped evidence or a videotaped confession.

Death penalty opponents cited the disproportionate number of blacks who have been executed in Maryland and nationwide to support their arguments.

"Given the fact that almost everybody who has been executed in the state of Maryland is an African-American, it seems that the death penalty is probably not fair," said Sen. Lisa Gladden, a sponsor of death penalty repeal bills in previous years. "It seems like the death penalty is probably imposed unfairly to poor people and to African-Americans."

Echoing Gladden's sentiments was Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown, a Democrat, who said, "Thirteen percent of the American population is African-American. Thirty-seven percent of our inmate population is African-American, and 41 percent of those who are on death row are African-American. It just doesn't add up."

Brown, who is black, said he fears a system that is more likely to put his son on death row than someone who is white.

NAACP President and CEO Ben Jealous made the plea against the death penalty by highlighting a series of exonerations, including that of Kirk Bloodsworth, a Maryland man who spent two years on death row and was later released from prison because of DNA evidence.

Maryland's death penalty has been on hold since a 2006 court ruling found the state's lethal injection protocols weren't properly approved by a legislative committee. Executions can't resume until the protocols are approved.

Maryland's last execution was under then-Gov. Bob Ehrlich, a Republican, in 2005, when Wesley Eugene Baker was put to death for the 1991 murder of a woman at a Baltimore County shopping center. Since 1976, Maryland has executed five people. Five men remain on death row.

Thirty-three states still have the death penalty. If repealed, Maryland would be the sixth state to do so in recent years.

The House Judiciary Committee also heard testimony from O'Malley on Thursday.